Homilies on Numbers 27.1–27.8

When God founded the world, he created countless differences of foods, according, namely, to the diversities either of human desire or of the nature of animals. Hence not only does a man, when he sees the food of animals, know that it was created not for himself but for the animals, but the animals themselves too recognize their own foods: the lion, for example, uses some, the deer others, the ox others, and birds others. And among men too there are certain differences in seeking foods: one who is quite healthy and strong in bodily condition seeks strong food, and believes and is confident that he can eat everything, like all the most robust athletes. But if someone feels himself rather weak and feeble, he delights in vegetables, and because of the weakness of his body does not take strong food. And if someone is a little child, even if he cannot indicate it by voice, yet in fact he seeks no other nourishment than that of milk. And so each one, according to his age or his strength or the health of his body, seeks food that is suitable for him and fitting to his strength. If you have sufficiently considered the example of bodily things, let us now come from them to the understanding of spiritual things. Every rational nature needs to be nourished by its own foods, fitting for it. And the true food of rational nature is the word of God. But just as we gave many differences in the nourishments of the body a little before, so too rational nature, which is fed, as we said, by reason and the word of God, is not all nourished by one and the same word. Hence, after the likeness of the bodily example, there is in the word of God too for some a food of milk: namely the plainer and simpler teaching, such as is usually about morals, which is customarily offered to those who have beginnings in divine studies and are receiving the first elements of rational instruction. To these, then, when some such reading of the divine volumes is recited in which nothing seems obscure, they receive it gladly: for example, the little book of Esther, or of Judith, or even of Tobit, or the precepts of Wisdom. But if the book of Leviticus is read to him, his mind is at once offended, and he flees it as if it were not his food. For one who has come to learn to worship God, to receive the precepts of his justice and godliness, hears commandments given about sacrifices and the rites of offerings taught: how will he not at once turn away his hearing and refuse it as food not suited to him? And another, when the Gospels or the Apostle or the Psalms are read, receives them gladly, embraces them willingly, and rejoices, gathering from them as it were certain remedies for his weakness. If the book of Numbers is read to him, and especially these places which we now have in hand, he will judge that they profit nothing for usefulness, nothing for the remedy of his weakness or the salvation of his soul; but he will at once reject them and spit them out as heavy and burdensome foods, unsuited to a sick and feeble soul. But just as (to take examples again from bodily things), if a lion were given understanding, he would not at once blame the abundance of grasses created because he himself feeds on raw flesh, nor would he say that they were produced superfluously by the Creator because he himself does not use them as food; nor again should a man, because he uses bread and other nourishments suited to him, blame God for having made serpents, which he sees provide food for deer; nor should a sheep or an ox blame it, for example, that other animals are given flesh to eat, since grasses alone are enough for them to eat: so too in rational foods, I mean the divine volumes, Scripture is not at once to be blamed or rejected if it seems more difficult or more obscure to understand, or to contain things which either a beginner and a child, or one who is weaker and less able to understand everything, cannot use, and from which he thinks no usefulness or salvation is conferred on him. But you should consider that, just as the serpent and the sheep, and the ox and man, and grass are all creatures of God, and this diversity looks to the praise and glory of the Creator, in that they either provide or take food suitable and in season for each of those for whom they were created, so too all these things which are words of God, and in which there is diverse food according to the capacity of souls, each one should take according as he feels himself healthy and strong. And yet, if we inquire more carefully, for example, in the reading of the Gospel or the apostolic teaching, in which you seem to delight and in which you consider you have the most suitable and sweetest food, how many things are there that escape you, if you examine and search out the commands of the Lord? And if the things that seem obscure and difficult are at once to be fled and avoided, you will find even in those in which you greatly trust so many obscure and difficult things that, if you hold this opinion, you will have to withdraw from them too. Yet there are very many things in them which are said too plainly and simply not to edify a hearer of little understanding. We have set these things before you by way of preface in order to rouse your minds, since we have in hand a reading of this kind, which seems difficult to understand and superfluous to read. But we cannot say of the writings of the Holy Spirit that anything in them is idle or superfluous, even if they seem obscure to some. But we ought rather to do this: turn the eyes of our mind to him who ordered these things to be written, and ask of him their understanding: so that, whether there is weakness in our soul, he who heals all its infirmities may heal us; or whether we are of little understanding, the Lord who guards the little ones may be present to us, and nourish us, and bring us to the measure of the stature. For both are in him: that we may be healed and that from little ones we may come to manly age. It is in us, then, to ask these things of God; but it is God’s to give to those who ask and to open to those who knock. But let this preface suffice.

Now let us come to the beginning of the reading itself which has been recited, so that, with the Lord’s help, we may be able to gather and explain its meaning, even if not clearly, at least in summary. It says, then: “These are the stations of the sons of Israel, from when they went out of the land of Egypt with their power, under the hand of Moses and Aaron. And Moses wrote their departures and stations by the word of the Lord,” and so on. You have heard that Moses wrote these things by the word of the Lord. And why did the Lord wish these things to be written? So that this record of the stations which the sons of Israel made might profit us something, or profit us nothing? And who would dare to say that what is written by the word of the Lord has no usefulness and confers no salvation, but only narrates a past event, which then indeed passed away, while now nothing comes to us from its telling? This opinion is impious and foreign to the catholic faith, and belongs only to those who deny that there is one only wise God of the law and the Gospels, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us try, then, to treat in summary, as time allows, what the faithful understanding ought to think about these stations. In the earlier discussion, when it had given us occasion to speak of the departure of the sons of Israel from Egypt, we said that each one can be seen to go out of Egypt spiritually in two ways: either when, leaving the Gentile life, we come to the knowledge of the divine law, or when the soul departs from the dwelling of this body. These stations, then, which Moses now describes by the word of the Lord, look to both. For of those stations which souls stripped of the body, or rather clothed again with their own body, will have, the Lord declared in the Gospel, saying: “In my Father’s house are many dwellings; otherwise I would have told you: I go and prepare a dwelling for you.” There are, then, many of those dwellings which lead to the Father; and in each of them what the soul that stays there receives, what of usefulness, or what of instruction or illumination, he alone knows, the Father of the age to come, who said of himself: “I am the door; no one comes to the Father except through me.” And perhaps in each of these dwellings he will become a door for each soul, so that it may enter through him and go out through him and find pasture, and again enter another, and from there another dwelling, until it comes to the Father himself. But we, almost forgetting our preface, have suddenly raised your hearing to lofty and exalted things. Now let us return to the things that happen among us and in us. The sons of Israel were in Egypt, afflicted with clay and brick in the works of King Pharaoh, until, groaning, they cried to the Lord, and he, hearing their groaning, sent them his word through Moses and led them out of Egypt. So too, when we were in Egypt, I mean in the errors of this world and the darkness of ignorance, doing the works of the devil and in the desires and pleasures of the flesh, the Lord had pity on our affliction and sent his Word, his only-begotten Son, to rescue us from the ignorance of error and bring us to the light of the divine law.

But first of all look at the reasoning of the mystery: whoever observes it carefully will find in the Scriptures that in the departure of the sons of Israel from Egypt there were forty-two stations; and again that the coming of our Lord and Saviour into this world is brought through forty-two generations. For so Matthew the evangelist records, saying: “From Abraham to King David, fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ, fourteen generations.” These forty-two generations, then, which Christ made like stations as he descended into the Egypt of this world, those who go up out of Egypt make, by the same number, into forty-two stations. And Moses carefully put it well, saying: “The sons of Israel went up with their power.” What is their power, if not Christ himself, who is the power of God? He, then, who goes up, goes up with him who came down to us from there, so as to come to the place from which he came down not by necessity but by condescension, so that what was said may be true, that “he who descended is the same who also ascended.” In forty-two stations, then, the sons of Israel come to the beginning of taking the inheritance. And the beginning of taking the inheritance was where Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh receive the land of Gilead. The number of the descent of Christ, then, is established, through forty-two fathers according to the flesh, as if descending through forty-two stations down to us; and through as many stations the ascent of the sons of Israel to the beginning of the promised inheritance. If you have understood how great a sacrament this number of descent and ascent contains, come now, and let us begin to ascend by the way by which Christ descended, and to make as our first station that which he made last, namely his being born of the Virgin; and let this be our first station when we wish to go out of Egypt, in which, having left the worship of idols and the veneration of demons, not gods, we believe that Christ was born of the Virgin and of the Holy Spirit, and that the Word made flesh came into this world. After this let us strive to advance and ascend to each of the steps of faith and virtues. If we dwell on them until we come to the perfect, we shall be said to have made a station at each step of the virtues, until, when we have come to the summit of instruction and advances, the promised inheritance is fulfilled.

But the soul too, when it sets out from the Egypt of this life to go to the land of promise, necessarily goes to those dwellings which have been prepared with the Father from the beginning. Surely mindful of them the prophet said: “These things I remembered, and I poured out my soul within me, for I will go into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God.” These are the dwellings and these the tabernacles of which he says in another place: “How lovely are your tabernacles, Lord of hosts! My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord.” Therefore in another place too the same prophet says: “My soul has long been a sojourner.” Understand, then, if you can, what these sojournings of the soul are, in which it laments that it has long been a sojourner with a certain groaning and grief. But the understanding of them is dulled and darkened while it is still a sojourner; but then it will be taught more truly and will understand more truly what was the reason of its sojourning, when it has returned to its rest, that is, to its homeland, paradise: which the prophet, beholding in a mystery, said: “Return, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has done you good.” But meanwhile it sojourns, and makes its journey, and completes its stations, sown, without doubt, with usefulness, as it says in a certain place: “I afflicted you and fed you with manna in the wilderness, which your fathers did not know, so that what was in your heart might be discerned.” These, then, are the stations by which the journey is made from earth to heaven. And who is found so capable, and so aware of the divine secrets, as to be able to describe the stations of this journey and ascent of the soul, and to explain the labours or the rests of each place? For how would he tell that after the first and second and third station Pharaoh still pursues, the Egyptians pursue, and though they do not catch them, yet they pursue, and though they were drowned, yet they had pursued? How would he declare that the people of God, having been saved, after some stations first sang a song, saying: “Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously honoured; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea”? But, as I said, I do not know whether the understanding of one who would dare to open these things station by station, and from contemplation of the names to conjecture the qualities of the stations, would be sufficient for the weight of the mysteries, or the hearing of the hearers would take it in. For how would one explain the onset of the war of the Amalekites, or the various temptations, and how would those be told whose limbs fell in the desert, and that not the sons of Israel at all, but the sons of the sons of Israel were able to come to the holy land, and all that old people fell, whose conduct and dwelling had been with the Egyptians, and only the new one, which did not know the Egyptians, came to the kingdom, except the priests and Levites? For if anyone can place himself in the order of the priests and Levites, if anyone can have no portion on earth but the Lord alone, he will not fall in the desert but will come to the land of promise. Hence you too, if you wish not to fall in the desert but to come to the land promised to the fathers, should not have your lot on earth, nor have anything in common with the earth. Let your portion be the Lord alone, and you will never fall. The ascent, then, is made from Egypt to the land of promise, through which, as I said, we are taught by mystical descriptions the ascent of the soul to heaven and the sacrament of the resurrection from the dead.

Names too are given to the stations. For it did not seem fitting that every place under heaven, whether of mountains or hills or plains, should use names, but that that ascent by which the soul ascends to the kingdom of God should not have the names of its stations. It has names of the stations fitted with mystical words, and it has as its guide not a pillar of fire and cloud, but the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, as the prophet says in another place: “The Lord himself led them.” Such, then, will be the ascent of the blessed soul, when all the Egyptians and Amalekites, and all who had attacked it, have been drowned; and, passing through each of the stations, namely those many which are said to be with the Father, it is further illuminated as it comes from one to another, always gaining greater increases of illumination, until it has become accustomed to bear the sight of the true light itself, which enlightens every man, and to endure the brightness of its wonderful majesty. But if we return to the second explanation, which we mentioned above, and understand that by these things the advances of the soul placed in this life are taught: having turned from the Gentile life, it follows not so much Moses as the law of God, and not Aaron but that priest who remains for ever; before it comes to the perfect, it dwells in the wilderness, where, namely, it is exercised in the commandments of the Lord, and where its faith is tested by temptations. There, when it has overcome one temptation and its faith has been tested in it, it comes from there to another, and passes as it were from one station to another; and there, when it has prevailed over what befell it and borne it faithfully, it goes on to another; and so, having passed through each of the trials of life and faith, it is said to have stations, in each of which increases of virtues are sought; and in them is fulfilled what is written: “They will go from strength to strength,” until one comes to the last, or rather the highest, step of the virtues, and the river of God is crossed, and the promised inheritance is received.

Using, then, a twofold explanation, we ought to consider this whole order of the stations which has been recited, so that our soul may advance from both, recognizing from them either how this life, which after conversion from error follows the law of God, ought to be lived, or how great is the expectation of the future hope which is promised from the resurrection. For so I think an understanding worthy of the laws of the Holy Spirit is taught from what is read. For to know what was the name of that place in the desert where, for example, the sons of Israel then encamped as they passed, what usefulness does it bring me, or what advance is conferred by this on those who read and meditate on the law of God day and night? Especially since we see that the Lord had such care for writing down these stations that their description was placed in the divine laws now for the second time. For these names were already recorded, though in some cases changed, at the time when the camp was moved place by place by Moses. Hence this very fact that this description is repeated a second time seems to me quite fitting for the mystery of the explanation we have proposed: for they are repeated twice in order to show the two ways of the soul: one by which, placed in the flesh, it is exercised in the virtues through the law of God, and, ascending by certain steps of advances, goes on, as we said, from strength to strength, and uses these very advances like stations; the other by which, after the resurrection, being about to ascend to the heavens, it does not climb to the summit suddenly or unsuitably, but is led through many dwellings, in each of which it is illuminated, and, always receiving an increase of splendour, in each dwelling is enlightened by the light of wisdom, until it comes to the Father of lights himself. “The sons of Israel went out,” then, it says, “with their power.” That power was with them which had said: “I will go down with you into Egypt”; and because this power was with them, the prophet says therefore: “And there was no weakness in their tribes.” And they had gone out under the hand of Moses and Aaron. For going out of Egypt the hand of Moses alone is not enough; the hand of Aaron is also sought. Moses signifies the knowledge of the law, Aaron the skill of sacrificing and offering to God. It is necessary, then, that in going out of Egypt we have not only the knowledge of the law and of faith, but also the fruits by which God is pleased. For that is why the hand of Moses and Aaron is mentioned, so that you may understand works through the hands. For if, going out of Egypt and turned to God, I cast off pride, I have sacrificed a bull to God by the hand of Aaron. If I destroy wantonness and lust, let me believe that I have slain a goat to the Lord by the hands of Aaron. If I conquer lust, I shall seem to have sacrificed a calf; if folly, a sheep. So, then, when the vices of the soul are purged, the hand of Aaron works in us; and the hand of Moses is with us when we are illuminated by the law to understand these very things. And therefore both hands are necessary for those going out of Egypt, so that there may be found in them not only the perfection of faith and knowledge, but also of acts and works; and yet these two are not two hands but one. For the Lord led them out “under the hand of Moses and Aaron,” and not “under the hands of Moses and Aaron”: for the work of both hands is one, and one is the fulfilment of perfection.

“And Moses wrote,” it says, “their departures and stations by the word of the Lord.” He wrote these things, then, by the word of the Lord, so that we, reading them and seeing how great departures await us on the journey that leads to the kingdom, may prepare ourselves for this life, and, considering the journey that awaits us, may not let the time of our life be consumed sluggishly or carelessly; lest perhaps, while we linger in these vanities of this world and delight in each of the things that come to sight or hearing, or even to touch and smell and taste, the days slip away and the time passes, and we do not manage to complete the whole extent of the journey before us, and fail in the middle, and there befall us what is related of some who could not arrive, but their limbs fell in the desert. We are making a journey, then, and for this we came into this world, to pass from strength to strength: not to remain on earth for earthly things, like the one who said: “I will pull down my barns and build others greater, and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; eat, drink, and be merry”; lest perhaps the Lord say to us too, as to him: “Fool, this night your soul will be taken from you.” He did not say “this day,” but “this night.” For he too is slain in the night, like the firstborn of the Egyptians, as one who loved the world and its darkness, and was a partaker of the rulers of the world, of this darkness. And this world is called darkness and night because of those who live in ignorance and do not receive the light of truth. But those who are such do not set out from Rameses, nor cross over to Succoth.

Let us see first, however, when the sons of Israel set out from Rameses. “In the first month,” it says, “on the fifteenth day of the month.” By the Lord’s command they had kept the Passover in Egypt on the fourteenth day of the month, slaying the lamb on the day before they set out, and they keep in a certain way the beginning of the festival while still placed in Egypt. On the next day, then, which is the first day of Unleavened Bread, on the fifteenth day of the first month, they set out from Rameses and come to Succoth, to keep there the day of the festival of Unleavened Bread. “Who is wise and will understand these things? Who is prudent and will know them?” Or rather, who is there who knows these things even in part, as the Apostle says: “We know in part and we prophesy in part”? Who understands how we keep feast days in part, so that no one may judge us in part of a feast day, or a new moon, or a Sabbath? For every feast day that is kept by men on earth is kept in part, not wholly, nor with the perfect title of festival; but when you have gone out of this Egypt, then you will have a perfect festival; then you will keep perfectly the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth; then you will keep the day of Pentecost in the wilderness, and then perhaps you will first receive the heavenly food of manna, and you will keep each of the festivals of which we have already spoken above as we could. Know, however, that after that Passover which was made in Egypt, we find a Passover celebrated once in the desert, when the law was given, and another, as we have observed in Numbers, not kept anywhere after this except in the land of promise. On the fifteenth day of the first month, then, the day after the Passover, which is the first day of Unleavened Bread, the sons of Israel set out from Rameses “with a high hand,” it says, “in the sight of all the Egyptians.” What is the “high hand”? For elsewhere too he says: “Let your hand be exalted.” Where the work is not human nor earthly but divine, there a high hand is named. For it has often been said already that work is understood by the hands. With a high hand, then, they set out in the sight of all the Egyptians. “And the Egyptians,” it says, “were burying their dead”; but the living were following the Lord their God. After this it is said that the Lord executed vengeance on their gods too. And in Exodus it says thus: “And on all the gods of the Egyptians the Lord will execute vengeance.” But here it says that the Lord executed vengeance on them. There are some who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, the Apostle says. And in the Psalms it is said: “All the gods of the nations are demons.” He calls gods, then, not the images, but the demons who sit by the images, on whom the Lord executed vengeance. But I should like to ask how God executes vengeance on demons, since the day of vengeance and judgment has certainly not yet come. But I think that vengeance is executed on demons in this way: when one who had been deceived by them into worshipping idols is converted by the word of the Lord and worships the Lord; and by the very work of conversion vengeance is given on him who had deceived him. Likewise, if one who had been deceived by demons into sexual immorality is converted to chastity, loves continence, and weeps for having gone astray, the demon is burned by the tears of his repentance, and so vengeance is given on the author of the deception. Likewise, if someone returns from pride to humility, from extravagance to thrift, through each of these he scourges and torments the demons who had deceived him in these things. With how great torments do you think they are driven if they see someone, according to the word of the Lord, sell all that he possesses and give to the poor, and take up his cross and follow Christ! But above all kinds of torments for them, and above all punishments, is it if they see someone devote himself to the word of God, searching out with intent study the knowledge of the divine law and the mysteries of the Scriptures: in this is all their flame, in this burning they are burned, since they had darkened human minds with the darkness of ignorance, and had obtained this, that God was unknown and the zeal of divine worship was transferred to themselves. What vengeance do you think is given on them, what flame of punishments is brought on them, when they see these things opened by the light of truth, and the clouds of their deceit unlocked through the knowledge of the divine law? For they possess all who live in ignorance; and not only those who are still in ignorance, but they often thrust themselves even on those who have known God, and again work in them the works of ignorance. For whatever sin anyone commits is certainly not without a demon: whether he is carried away by immoderate anger, or when he plunders another’s goods; and he who sits and speaks against his neighbour, and puts a stumbling block before his mother’s son, is not without a demon. And therefore we must act in every way so that we do not perhaps raise up again in ourselves the firstborn of the Egyptians, or their gods whom the Lord struck and destroyed, by giving them room to work in us the things that God hates. But if we keep ourselves from all these things, in the way we said above, he has executed vengeance on all the gods of the Egyptians, and the demons receive punishments from our amendment and conversion.